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Buchignani: Formula One needs more Netflix-style drama

Valtteri Bottas of Finland steers his Mercedes during Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix. The championship leader posted the fastest lap time of the day.Photo: PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU

Walter Buchignani, Montreal Gazette

Published: May 11, 2019 - 11:26 AM

When it comes to manufacturing Formula One cars these days, no one does it better than Mercedes.

Manufacturing excitement? Well, that’s a different story.

Team principal Toto Wolff gets full credit for trying, though. It isn’t easy to find drama where it doesn’t exist.

Certainly, there’s been too little on the track this season, with the Silver Arrows rattling off four consecutive one-two finishes — an F1 record for the start of a campaign.

Good for them and their fans; less good for fans of the sport.

Round 5 takes place this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix, and another top podium for Mercedes there would come as a surprise to no one.

Ah, but which driver?

Valtteri Bottas of Finland steers his Mercedes during Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix. The championship leader posted the fastest lap time of the day.

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas each have two victories, so at least there’s the prospect of a battle between teammates for top spot in Barcelona and beyond.

But let’s face it: That doesn’t appeal to the same extent as a genuine fight at the front among drivers in different colour cars.

Worst cast scenario, there is no fight, period, even within the same squad, either by design — those dreaded “team orders” — or because one driver is naturally more dominant than the other.

Fortunately, it appears Mercedes will allow Hamilton and Bottas to slug it out, at least for now, and both have been equal to the task, with just a single point separating the two at the top of the standings.

For the record, Bottas leads thanks to the new rule that awards a point to the driver who posts the fastest lap of a race, which he earned at the season opener in Australia.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel sits third in the standings — 35 points behind the leader — while the gap between the red and silver cars in the constructors’ championship is a yawning 74 points.

To be fair, F1 history is littered with epic showdowns between teammates that for the fans help compensate for the lack of competition from other quarters.

In other words, don’t be tempted to switch the channel just yet.

In 2016, Hamilton lost the title to then-teammate Nico Rosberg in a see-saw campaign that turned bitter, after which the exhausted new champion announced his premature retirement from F1, vacating the seat now occupied by Bottas.

It was perhaps in the spirit of stoking fan interest that Wolff recently suggested the Hamilton-Bottas partnership, while now on friendly terms, could turn equally testy — though he was quick to add he would not like to see that happen.

“You have two drivers that have the ability and ambition to win a championship,” Wolff was quoted as saying. “I think we are lucky that they have a very good relationship; they get on with each other.

“There are not a lot of games in the background, and I’m very happy about that. But as a matter of fact we have to be conscious that we have seen relationships deteriorate.”

One can only hope.

Montreal native Lance Stroll abandons his Racing Point after crashing during Friday practice in Barcelona.

At the same time, it’s important not to place blame where it doesn’t belong. It’s not the fault of Mercedes that it lacks competition; it’s the fault of the competition.

If there’s a reasonable explanation for why other teams keep coming up short, I have yet to hear it. Smaller budgets and fewer resources are a legitimate excuse for many, but not all.

Mercedes has swept the drivers’ and constructors’ championships for five straight years, since the introduction of turbo hybrid engines in 2014. You’d think the likes of Ferrari, Renault and Honda would have caught up by now. Instead, 2019 looks like more of the same so far.

What a shame. F1 owner Liberty Media has done a good job of trying to grow the sport since taking over from the Bernie Ecclestone old order. But it’s up to others to do a better job of building and driving race cars.

Perhaps nothing has done more to raise the profile of F1 than the new Netflix series Formula One: Drive to Survive. I’ve had a number of people — not all of them racing fans — tell me they’re hooked. I’m not surprised; it’s terrific.

But the drama it brings to the screen through the magic of editing must be made more present, more often on the track during Grand Prix weekends. That takes a different kind of magic.

Spain promises to be interesting. The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is where F1 teams do much of their testing, and where Ferrari emerged as the pre-season favourite just two months ago.

Somewhere between then and now, the Prancing Horse lost its footing. For the good of the sport, here’s hoping it gets it back.